Clean Millions From My Dirty Husband

To pay off my fathers eight-million-dollar gambling debt, I married Buck Millera rough-edged industrialist who could barely read a balance sheet, let alone a menu in French.

He wanted the prestige of a Ivy League trophy wife; I wanted the bottomless pit of his bank account.

I loathed his lack of culture. I hated the way he smacked his lips when he ate. I treated his black card like a weapon, wielding it to reign over our estate like a bored, vengeful queen. He never complained. Whenever Id max out a limit, hed just offer a rugged, dimpled smile.

"You look beautiful, Callie," hed say, his voice a gravelly rumble. "The mine just moved another shipment. Spend whatever you want. Theres plenty more where that came from."

On New Years Eve, Buck went back to the site to hand out the holiday bonuses. There was a collapse. He didn't make it out.

That January was the most peaceful month of my life. The house finally stopped smelling like coal dust and cheap tobacco. I spent my days in full glam, planning a trip to the Mediterranean where I intended to spend his fortune on designer clothes and a revolving door of handsome, well-built men.

But on the seventh day after his deaththe traditional day of mourning Id planned to ignorehis lawyer arrived with a key to a private safe.

Inside was a single bank card loaded with fifty million dollars. Resting on top of it was a scrap of paper, the handwriting shaky and uneven:

[For my girl. This money is clean. Take it and go live the life youve always wanted.]

The lawyer placed the key on my marble coffee table. Next to it sat the sleek, titanium card.

"Mr. Miller gave me very specific instructions before he passed," the lawyer said, his voice measured. "The fifty million in this account has been through a rigorous, independent audit. It wasn't touched by any high-risk private loans, nor did it come from any of the unregulated surplus profits from the deeper veins."

He paused, looking me in the eye. "He wanted me to tell you that this money is 'clean.'"

I picked up the card. It was cold to the touch.

Even in death, Buck remembered my obsession. I had always acted like his money was tainted by the soot of the mines, like the cash he carried was stained by the spit and sweat of the workers. So, he had laundered it through the purest channels possible, just for me.

I tucked the card into my designer clutch and looked up. "Is that all?"

The lawyer blinked, seemingly unsettled by the fact that my eyes were perfectly dry. "Thats it for the cash. The real estate and mining rights are caught up in a more complex probate. Mr. Millers advice was that if the 'dirty' assets became too much of a headache to manage, you should simply walk away. Just take the fifty million and go."

I nodded. "Fine. See yourself out."

Suddenly, the front door was kicked open with a violent thud. The heavy bronze doors shuddered against the wall.

A group of people surged into the foyer. Bucks relatives.

Leading the pack was his Uncle Silas, wearing a suit that looked two sizes too small and was splattered with dried mud. His boots, heavy and caked with grime, marched across my hand-woven Persian rug, leaving a trail of black filth. Behind him were half a dozen men and women, some carrying duffel bags, others clutching heavy tools as if they were going to dismantle the house right then and there.

Silas pointed a thick, calloused finger at my face. "Hand it over, Callie! Buck is dead, and Miller money isn't staying with some gold-digging outsider!"

A woman behind him spat on the floor. "The little princess is finally showing her true colors! If Buck hadn't paid off your daddys debts, youd be rotting in some basement right now! You think youre just gonna run off with the loot? Not a chance!"

I didn't move from the sofa. I just stared at the glob of phlegm on the cream-colored wool rug. It was a sickening yellowish-green, a direct assault on my senses.

I felt a wave of visceral nausea. When Buck was alive, he was loud and unrefined, but he never dared to spit in this house. He knew I was a germaphobe. Hed go out to the courtyard even if he had a hacking cough. Now that he was gone, these vultures were turning my sanctuary into a pigsty.

Silas took my silence for fear. He lunged for the bag on the table. "I'll take that!"

I grabbed the cup of scalding Earl Grey from the tray and threw it.

The tea splashed across Silass hand. He let out a guttural howl, clutching his wrist as he stumbled back.

"You bitch! You burned me! Break it! Break everything! I want to see where shes hiding the rest of it!"

The group raised their wrenches and clubs. I pulled out my phone and hit the speakerphone button.

"911, what is your emergency?" the operators voice filled the room.

I spoke clearly, my voice cold as ice. "I am at 101 Highland Drive. I have a group of armed individuals committing a home invasion and attempted robbery. My name is Callie Mercer. I have high-definition security footage of the entire event."

The room went dead silent. Silass eyes widened.

"Robbery? Im his uncle! Taking what belongs to the family isn't robbery!"

I hung up and tossed a folder of documents onto the table. "Bucks will is on file with the probate court. I am the sole beneficiary. You have no legal claim to his estate. Forcing your way into a private residence with weapons is a felony. In this state, armed robbery carries a minimum of ten years."

I stood up, smoothing the silk of my skirt. "And that tea? That was self-defense against an attempted assault."

I looked at the head of my security detail, who had finally appeared at the door. "Block the exits. No one leaves until the police arrive."

The security team moved in. The relatives, who had been so emboldened moments ago, began to panic. Silas, clutching his red, blistered hand, hissed at me. "Youre cold, Callie. Bucks body isn't even cold yet, and youre treating his blood like criminals!"

I looked at him with nothing but contempt. "Is he cold, Silas? Or are you just hungry? You sucked his blood while he was breathing, and now you want to pick his bones clean before hes even in the ground."

The police arrived minutes later. Silas and his crew were hauled away, still screaming obscenities.

When the house was finally quiet, I pointed at the stain on the rug. I looked at the maid. "Burn the rug. And sanitize every inch of the floor they stepped on. Three times."

She nodded, trembling as she started to work.

I sat back down in the empty living room. Buck was gone. The man who smacked his lips, snored like a freight train, and smelled of cheap Marlboros had vanished.

There would be no more rough, sandpaper-calloused hands trying to brush my cheek. No more soot-stained jackets hanging next to my cashmere coats. The air was finally free of that heavy, industrial scent Id hated for five years.

I felt the cold card in my purse.

[Buck, you lived a dirty life, but you certainly washed this money clean.]

It was probably the most sophisticated thing hed ever done.

Ten o'clock at night.

The villa was so quiet I could hear the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. Id sent the staff home early.

I walked to the wine cellar and reached for the top shelf. There was a bottle of Romanee-Conti that Buck had bought two years ago. He didn't know a thing about wine; he just knew it was the most expensive thing in the shop. Hed brought it home like a puppy bringing a trophy to its master, only for me to mock him.

I remembered saying, "A man who drinks beer out of a can shouldn't touch a bottle like this. Youd just be wasting it. Don't touch my collection. Your hands will smudge the labels."

He never touched that cabinet again.

I uncorked the bottle now, pouring the dark, ruby liquid into a decanter. I walked through the house, glass in hand, savoring the silence.

It was peaceful. Usually, at this hour, Id hear his heavy boots in the foyer. Hed always try to be quiet, which made it worsethe sound of a two-hundred-pound man trying to tiptoe. Hed leave his mud-caked work boots outside the door and walk in his socks, terrified of marking the floors.

"Callie! Im home!" hed bellow. "The mess hall had steak tonight, but I skipped the garlic so I wouldn't bother you."

Then hed disappear into the guest bathroom, scrubbing his skin raw with lye soap, washing himself three times before hed even think about coming near me. Then hed poke his head into the bedroom and ask, "Hey, Callie? Is it okay if I sleep on the floor in here tonight?"

Now, the foyer was spotless. The shower was dry. The voice was gone.

I took a sip of the wine. It was silky, with notes of black cherry and earth. This was the life I had wanted. No coal dust. No noise.

I pushed open the door to his study. It was the one room I had rarely entered while he was alive. There was a locked drawer in his desk. Id always assumed it held his "private" stashcash he didn't want the auditors to see, or maybe photos of some girl he kept on the side in the mining town. Thats what men like him did, wasn't it?

Now that he was dead, there was no point in secrets. I grabbed a letter opener and pried the lock.

The drawer slid open.

There was no money. No photos of mistresses.

Just a chaotic mess of junk. Broken pencil stubshundreds of them, in varying lengths, piled in a corner. And a thick stack of crumpled paper. It was cheap, yellowed ledger paper from the mines.

The pages were covered in black, smudged marks. Charcoal and graphite.

I frowned, pinching a page between two fingers. My skin was immediately coated in a layer of black dust. I shook my hand in disgust.

The drawing on the page was a messy, dark blur. I couldn't even tell what it was supposed to be. Buck, the man who could barely sign his own name, was trying to be an artist?

The drawer smelled of raw carbon and sweat. It figured. You could take the man out of the mine, but you couldn't take the coal out of the man. Even in a multi-million dollar mansion, he was still playing with dirt.

I grabbed the whole stack of papers and the pencil nubs and shoved them into the trash can. A cloud of black dust rose into the air.

I held my breath and backed away, scrubbing my fingers with a silk handkerchief. The soot had settled into the fine lines of my fingerprints, stubborn and dark.

I felt a sudden, sharp spike of irritation. I pulled out my phone. I wanted to talk to someonesomeone sophisticated. I thought of a young painter Id met at a gallery opening last month. He was pale, soft-spoken, and smelled of expensive cologne.

I scrolled through my contacts, stopping just above the name I had saved as "The Ogre."

Bucks contact photo was just a picture of a mine entrance. Whenever I wouldn't pick up his calls, hed send these pathetic texts: Callie, Im at the surface now. Got a signal. You eat yet?

I locked the screen and tossed the phone onto the sofa. The wine in my glass suddenly tasted flat.

I looked at the empty room and whispered, "Youre so annoying, Buck. Even dead, youre leaving me a mess to clean up."

On the third day, the morgue called for a formal identification.

I did my full routine. The whitest foundation, a bold red lip. I wore a vintage Chanel black dress and ten-inch Louboutins. To mask the stench of a place like that, I practically bathed in perfume.

The waiting room was packed with familiesother victims of the collapse. They wore drab, dusty coats, huddled on the plastic chairs, sobbing and wiping their faces with dirty tissues.

I stood in the center of the room like a peacock in a graveyard.

An attendant approached me, holding out a surgical mask. "Mrs. Miller, just a warning. In a mining accident... the remains aren't always... whole."

I took the mask, glancing at the cheap blue fabric with disdain, but I didn't put it on. "Ill be fine. Lead the way."

He pushed open the heavy steel doors. The smell hit me instantlyformalin mixed with a metallic, sweet rot. I pressed my lace handkerchief to my nose.

The attendant pulled out a tray and unzipped a yellow body bag. "This is Buck Miller."

I looked down.

My pupils contracted.

There was no trace of the boisterous, rugged man I knew. It was just a mangled mass of flesh. His face was encrusted with coal dusta blackness so deep it had become part of his skin, something no amount of scrubbing could ever remove. Part of his skull had collapsed. His lips were pulled back, revealing teeth stained with grit.

The suit hed been wearingthe one he always put on just to see mewas now just shredded rags matted with black blood.

Dirty. He was so incredibly dirty. It was the foulest thing I had ever seen.

My stomach did a violent somersault. It wasn't grief. It wasn't heartbreak. It was pure, physiological revulsion.

I pushed the attendant aside and doubled over.

"Ugh."

I retched. The espresso Id had for breakfast splattered across my eight-hundred-dollar shoes.

The grieving families in the hallway went silent, staring at me in shock. I heard a whisper from the corner. "Look at her. Her husband is lying there and shes not even crying. Shes just disgusted."

"Rich people," another muttered. "No soul."

I heard them. I didn't care.

I straightened up, wiping the corner of my mouth with the handkerchief Buck used to say was "pretty as a cloud." Then I tossed the silk into the trash.

I looked at the hand sticking out of the bag. Two fingers were missing. The fingernails were caked in black mud. I remembered that hand reaching out to help me with my dress once, only for me to kick it away.

Don't touch me. You're filthy.

Buck had just pulled his hand back, wiped it on his jeans, and smiled sheepishly. Right. Sorry, Callie. I'm a mess. I won't touch.

Now, he was just a pile of unwanted refuse.

I looked at the attendant. "Its him. Burn it."

"You want the cremation now? No viewing? No service?"

"No. He wasn't a dignified man in life, and hes a horror show in death. Don't scare people with this. Just burn it and send me the urn."

I turned and walked out. My heels clicked sharply against the concrete.

[See, Buck? I thought. You never learned how to be clean. You died a mess. How am I supposed to cry for something so foul?]

The first thing I did when I got home was kick off those stained shoes and throw them in the outdoor bin.

I walked barefoot into the living room. My phone was buzzing. Dad.

I picked up. My fathers voice was high-pitched, a mix of frantic anxiety and greed.

"Callie! I saw the news! That coal-monkey finally kicked it? Whats the word on the payout? What did the lawyers say?"

I sat on the sofa, staring at the black urn sitting on the coffee table. "Its done."

"How much? Is it a hundred million? Your brother needs a place in the city, and his fiance is demanding a half-million-dollar ring. Send me twenty million. No, thirty!"

I didn't say a word.

My mind flashed back five years. I was the "Golden Girl" of my university, on a full scholarship, standing in front of the library in a white sundress. Then my father showed up with a group of debt collectors, grabbing me by the hair and dragging me toward a car.

"Forget school!" hed screamed. "I owe eight million, and Im selling you to that mine owner to square the debt!"

I had screamed, struggled, begged for help. No one moved.

Until a mud-splattered Range Rover roared onto the curb, cutting off the collectors. Buck Miller jumped out, carrying a heavy canvas bag. He slammed it onto the hood of their car. The zipper burst, revealing stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

He pointed at me and roared at the collectors, "Take the money! The girl stays with me!"

That first night in the "marriage" suite, I held a pair of sewing scissors to my own throat. I yelled at him, "Don't come near me! Youre a rapist! Ill die before I let you touch me!"

Buck, looking ridiculous in a tuxedo that was too tight for his frame, stood in the doorway, hands raised.

"I... I didn't mean for it to be like that. Your dad said you wanted to marry me."

"I was forced! Youre a stupid, uneducated grunt! You make me sick!"

Buck rubbed the back of his neck, his face turning a deep, embarrassed red. "Then... then I won't touch you. Youre a college girl. Youre smart. Im just a guy who digs holes. Ill just keep you in the house... like a lucky charm. Just seeing you makes me happy."

That night, he actually took a blanket and slept on the sofa. He was six-foot-three and the leather couch was tiny; he looked like a giant, clumsy bear trying to hide in a shoe box.

On the phone, my father was still ranting. "Answer me, you brat! The coal-monkey is dead, were finally free! Get the money and bring it home. Don't you dare keep it all for yourself!"

"Free?" I repeated the word.

I looked at the cold urn. My chest felt suddenly, inexplicably tight.

For the first time in my life, I screamed at my father. "His name wasn't coal-monkey! His name was Buck!"

My father went quiet for a second, then hissed, "Why are you defending a dead man? He was a low-life pit-digger! He wasn't worth your brothers pinky finger!"

"He was cleaner in his little finger than this whole family combined!"

I slammed the phone down and blocked his number. I threw the device across the room and suddenly, without warning, I was sobbing.

Why was I crying? Was it the relief of being free from my family? Or was it because the only shield I ever had against those vampires had finally crumbled?

The doorbell rang. It was the lawyer again. He was holding a different envelope.

"Mrs. Mercer, this is the second set of documents Mr. Miller left for you. He said I should only give these to you once the 'family business' was handled and youd had time to settle."

I wiped my eyes and took the folder. "What is it? More money?"

The lawyer shook his head, his expression grim. "No. Its Mr. Millers medical records."

"Medical records?"

I pulled out the papers. On top was a CT scan of a pair of lungs. They were pitch black, covered in a spiderweb of shadows and nodules.

Underneath was the diagnosis: Stage IV Silicosis. Black Lung. Chronic respiratory failure.